Late Blight Resistant Tomatoes

[carolyn137]

Tom, no problem at all, I just hadn't realized that Randy was working on Late Blight as well as EB. There's no disagreement whatsoever.

As for Amy, whom I know well, she's just one of many many folks who have encouraged folks to pay attention to biological diversity and preserve varieties. There are many very active SSE members who are involved not just as individuals but as commercial seed sources as well, and also others who have written for magazines, books and more.I don't think I need to give any links here to what I'm talking about re the many others b/c you should know them. Just start with Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation, currently curator of cucurbits for SSE, who also happens to list about 400 tomato varieties at his website and in his catalog

A certain lady who wrote a book about heirloom tomatoes that was released in 1999 also wrote a lot about it as well, and she also has posted online since about 1989 and made the same case for biological diversity and variety preservation. And you and I talked about that when we met in Pasadena.

Thanks for the info on potato LB tolerant varieties. And just a note but many do equate the word immune with resistant.

And I hear you on all that has to happen before you can release anything and as you know you and I have also talked about that before as well although this time your list is longer.

[Rena]

I will throw my small cents in about De bareo black and Black plum. I thought they "could" be same tomato. Nope, Black plum is much more resistant and has better flavor then dbblack. I will say that the pink faired pretty well here.

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

dcarch, where are you in NYS that you'd have problems with Late BLight? Few are those areas as far as I know.------
-----

I am in Westchester, NY.
I am not sure what kinds of blights and diseases I have been getting in the past. Most likely everything. With multiple symtoms it's difficult to identify.

dcarch

[Tom Wagner]

Carolyn,

And I hear you on all that has to happen before you can release anything and as you know you and I have also talked about that before as well although this time your list is longer

Adding to my list of what it would take to get me release stuff. Current vernacular, trendy sayings, popular quotes, and the gistinesses of life in general propel one to write things that are near sacri-tomatoan.






An A. Gonxha Bojaxhiu moment as might be experienced by a tomato breeder writing in a personal diary.

Beware the caprice, the whimsy, the vagaries, and the crotchetiness and the seemingly farfetchedness of this writer! Plagiarism mixed with originalism is just a oxymoronic way of saying "Original Copy."





"At times in my own inner being, I feel the terrible pain of this loss of tomato diversity within my own tomato breeding work, let alone in other's work. The everlasting life that a tomato variety has—if it is released and the dear souls save seed of it---begs that I release more varieties. But how? I feel that The Tomato God does not want me, that The Tomato God is not really a Tomato God and that he does not really exist."

Note to self: Get a hold of yourself and start believing in yourself, and don't believe everything you might have written somewhere. Is there a ever a doubt about the heavenly nature of a really good tomato?

Go to this following topic on TVille.com for off topic fun

The Tomato God—and it was good!



Tom Wagner

[carolyn137]

Adding to my list of what it would take to get me release stuff. Current vernacular, trendy sayings, popular quotes, and the gistinesses of life in general propel one to write things that are near sacri-tomatoan.


*****

Now you've got me laughing.

Tom, I think you've enjoyed reading and posting today and I hope you find time to do more of it.

There are old retired ladies like myself who stop by here several times a day and I do understand if one doesn't keep up with new threads that they disappear into the back post area.

And I know there are several you would have commented on had you seen them when they were first posted.

Alas, your time to spend posting online I'm sure is more restricted than many others who post here.

[Tom Wagner]

Now you've got me laughing.

I think if we all could use humor to mend fences, catch up with old friends as well as new, tickle a funny bone now and then, position the outward smile so that the sun reflects its sincerity; we could connect with anyone open enough to read and giggle.

Thanks to all if you laughed. Tom

[blatanna]

Having read all the suggestions for tomatoes with some blight resistance i am wondering if snyone has grown Ferline. Its an F1 variety. Its got a good flavour, is a red medium sized tom and has been one of the few that has shown resistance to blight in my garden for the last couple of years.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by blatanna

Having read all the suggestions for tomatoes with some blight resistance i am wondering if snyone has grown Ferline. Its an F1 variety. Its got a good flavour, is a red medium sized tom and has been one of the few that has shown resistance to blight in my garden for the last couple of years.

But which blight Blatanna?

This thread is about Late Blight ( P. infestans), not Early Blight ( A.solani). And remembering that Late blight can appear both early and late in the season as can Early blight.

And I'm wondering if it wasn't Ferline that T and M featured on the back cover of their catalog a few years ago. And there they only said blight and didn't specify which blight was involved.

[Tom Wagner]

http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk/...duct/aww3003/1

A remarkable Tomato variety. In recent trials Ferline has shown impressive blight tolerance in a garden situation. Ferline could be the answer to many gardeners' prayers, to help overcome this most destructive disease.

Early Blight, Late Blight, or Blight? Methinks just Blight is a bit Light.

[velikipop]

A very interesting thread. I am still a bit confused about indentifying early and late blight. I have read that late blight devestates a crop within days whereas early blight allows for some fruit to be salvaged. I think I have had experience with both over the years.

Carolyn's comment that early blight can occur at any time helps quite a bit since many of my tomatoes have had signs of some sort of blight but are still bearing disease free as well as diseased fruit. Can I assume that this might be the early variety of blight?

I have a few plants that have shown good tolerance this year the best so far is Sicilian Saucer. I have one growing at home in the open alongside a Paul Robeson, Moskvich, Dr Neal, Sungold OP, Black Cherry and Mortgage Lifter. While all of these look like they have a severe case of blight and will be pulled, the Sicilian does not show any signs of disease at all. Too bad it is not a better producer.

As for Legend, I have grown it for two years and was not impressed with its tolerance or its taste.

Alex

[orflo]

We don't really use the term 'late blight' over here in Belgium, we had ph.infestans in our tomatoes from the end of May, so what's late? I grew about 70 varieties, Legend, Phytoresista, Bajawa and others , all were supposed to have a very good resistance against the late blight,I got two ripe tomatoes from Phytoresista, all the other ones were killed, except one variety:tomatito de jalapa, but the tomatoes are very small. This is a variety carrying genes of other botanical tomatoes, they have a bigger resistance. Even in the greenhouse my tomatoes are affected by now, almost out-produced and very sick. The biggest factor is humidity, we had lots of rain, little sunshine to dry up the plants,
Frank

[Andrey_BY]

Frank has fully described my growing conditions as well. Seems to me we all here in Europe call this desease as Phytophtora and not a Late Blight.

Our main problem is a high humidity during the whole summer and a lot of rains and fogs in August-September.

[carolyn137]

You/ve noticed that when I refer to Early or Late Blight I almost always say Early Blight ( A.solani) and Late Blight ( P.infestans) so I don't think it makes any difference what one calls them as long as it's understood that it's two very different pathogens that cause the diseases.

Do you folks call Early Blight Alternaria?

Alex, just go to Google or even go to the Problem Solver here at Tville in the Disease Forum and you'll see that the symptoms of both are very very different.

Early Blight leads to primarily spots on the leaves that are quite distinctive and less often there can be fruit symptoms and stem ones as well. If this fungal disease isn't prevented there's defoliation of the plant but not death of the plant in a short time as one sees with Late Blight.

With Late BLight one of the earliest symptoms is bending down of the petioles and then greyish water soaked looking spots on the foliage, and as I said before, plants can be a stinking mass of black tissue very rapidly.

One of the problems here in the US is that folks use the word blight to describe anything wrong with their tomato plants and that leads to sometimes lots of questions that I or others ask in order to make some kind of diagnosis of what really is wrong with the plants.

[Andrey_BY]

Carolyn, yes, it is called Alternaria ("Alternarioz" using Russian spelling) or Dry Blight (or Dry Spottiness)

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Andrey_BY

Carolyn, yes, it is called Alternaria ("Alternarioz" using Russian spelling) or Dry Blight (or Dry Spottiness)

The problem there Andrey, which is why I even mentioned that is b/c there are other tomato diseases caused by an Alternaria species, such as Alternaria Stem Canker. So without specifying both the genus and species it might well lead to confusion.

Ah well, as long as everyone wherever they live understands what they're referring to it shouldn't make a difference.